The present invention relates to a portable electronic device, and more particularly, to a portable electronic device with an embedded electric shock protection function capable of protecting an internal circuit and/or a user from a leakage current and static electricity by providing an electric shock protection element connected to a conductor in the portable electronic device, wherein the conductor is exposed to the outside.
Today, portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, include metal cases which are exposed to the outside of housings to improve aesthetics, robustness, and reception sensitivity.
Such portable electronic devices generally use an adaptor to charge a battery.
However, in a portable electronic device including a metal case which is exposed to the outside, when a defective charger is used to charge the portable electronic device, a leakage current is conducted to the metal case. When the portable electronic device comes into contact with a body of a user, the user feels a shooting pain due to the leakage current or the leakage current causes an electric shock in some cases.
This is because a protective element for protecting a user from a leakage current is not embedded in the defective charger. In addition, in a unofficial charger, when Y capacitors (Y-CAPs) configured as capacitors at both ends of a transformer to enhance electrical insulation of the transformer do not have a normal characteristic, direct current (DC) power may not be sufficiently blocked by the Y-CAPs, and moreover, a leakage current may be generated by alternating current (AC) power, and such a leakage current may propagate along a ground of a circuit. Therefore, the protective element for protecting a user from a leakage current needs to be embedded in a portable electronic device such as a mobile phone.
Meanwhile, the metal case exposed to the outside performs various roles, such as a simple stiffener, a ground, an antenna, and the like, according to a position thereof.
However, a low capacitance is good in a case in which the metal case is used as a ground, but, in a case in which the metal case is used as an antenna, the metal case is required to implement a high capacitance because the metal case operates in an open mode and a radio frequency (RF) signal is not smoothly transmitted when the capacitance is low.
That is, the capacitance is required to be increased or decreased according to the role of the metal case. This is because RF reception sensitivity is improved but the metal case is vulnerable to an electrostatic discharge (ESD) when a high capacitance is used.
Therefore, the protective element should also be disposed between the metal case and a receiver impedance matching line inside the housing to perform an appropriate role according to the role of the metal case.
That is, while the protective element operates close to a short mode and can smoothly protect against a leakage current and static electricity, there is an urgent necessity to develop a protective element capable of improving RF reception sensitivity by allowing the protective element itself to have a high capacitance.
In addition, in a case of a portable electronic device with a camera module, because the camera module is exposed to the outside, there is a very high possibility of an electric shock to a user or damage to an internal circuit due to the above-described electrostatic current or static electricity.
Specifically, because some static electricity propagates to a data line of the camera module when the static electricity is transmitted to the camera module, the static electricity causes screen division when capturing an image.
Therefore, there is a need for a method of eliminating adverse effects of static electricity from the outside or a leakage current of a circuit part on the camera module.